Endangered Languages

By Patrick Appel
Barry Gewen reviews One Thousand Languages edited by Peter K. Austi:

Obviously, nothing will help Njerep, with four speakers left, none of them younger than 60. But what about Burushaski, with 90,000 speakers, or Kunwinjku, with only 2,000? I know that if I learned there were only 2,000 polar bears or blue whales left in the world, I’d favor heroic measures to save them. But a language is not the same thing as a species.

Think about it. When a small population gives up its language voluntarily (as opposed to compulsorily), it does so to become part of a larger or more powerful community. To preserve such peoples, we’d have to isolate them or maintain their languages through some other artificial, even coercive, means. But that very artificiality is a signal that a language is on its deathbed.

The author of the chapter on endangered languages tells us that 90 percent of the languages currently spoken will probably disappear by the end of this century. Scholars who record native speakers and compile dictionaries should be supported in their efforts: we ought to have as full a record as possible of the wonderful diversity in human history. But probably the best we can do for dying tongues (and cultures) is, hospice-style, to make the transition to a wider, more cosmopolitan world as painless and humane as possible.